More Than A Memory
by Quidditchref
Summary: Years after the defeat of Voldy, Ginny Potter reflects back on their first peaceful New Year's Eve, and the wonderful moment she got more than a memory. Harry Ginny Ron Hermione Draco James Albus


MORE THAN A MEMORY

"Mommy, me help?" asked two-year-old James Sirius Potter as his mother held six-month-old Albus Severus to her breast.

"Oh, I don't think right now, honey," replied Ginny Potter. "Al is hungry. Why don't you see if daddy can use your help taking down the tree?"

Ginny pushed her bright red hair out of her eyes as they followed little James toddling out of the room. It was New Year's Eve 2006, and she could hardly believe how lucky her life had been. They had two beautiful boys, and had settled into a wonderfully quite life in Grimmauld Place. Could life get any better? Especially after all the trouble it had taken to get to this point. She shifted the baby in her arms, and thought back to New Year's Eve in 1998, their first New Year free of the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters.

It was amazing how few Hogwarts students had anywhere to go for the holidays in 1998. That spring, Harry Potter had defeated Tom Riddle, otherwise known as the Dark Lord or Voldemort, in one of the most terrible wars ever waged in the wizarding world. Unfortunately for many students, the war had left them without homes, missing parents, and nowhere to go. For some, like Harry, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley and Luna Lovegood, they had not been able to complete their seventh years, and needed to return yet again to earn their N.E.W.T.s. This put them in the same graduating class as Ginny Weasley, Ron's younger sister.

In fact, Gryffindor Tower was unusually crowded. For one thing, only a few Slytherin House students had been readmitted from the older years, and only 30 first years had been sorted into the snake house. Only a few of the Slytherins were permitted to stay, and because Head of House Horace Slughorn had been called away, Headmistress McGonagall had required them to move temporarily into Gryffindor dorms. This was especially distasteful to the true Gryffindors because one of them was none other than Draco Malfoy, who they still thought of as one of their main enemies.

It had taken every string that could be pulled to get Draco back into school. Both his parents had been sent to Azkaban, but Harry Potter and Hermione Granger had both testified at his defense and school hearings. They told the committees that Draco had saved their lives by refusing to identify them to Riddle, and Harry added that it was Draco's mother, Narcissa, who had tricked Voldemort into thinking he was dead.

"Also, I have talked to the family, and I think they have slowly changed some of their views," Harry had told the judges. "Frankly, for the last couple of years, they have been acting more out fear than loyalty. I am certain they were afraid either Belletrix Lestrange or Riddle would kill them at the least sign of disloyalty. Also, I think Riddle was actually trying to set them up for failure so he would have an excuse to make an example out of them."

Once McGonagall also testified that she thought there was hope to at least partially rehabilitate the young blond boy, Malfoy had been conditionally re-admitted on double secret probation.

So it was that the students living in Gryffindor, and around two-dozen each in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, found themselves at Hogwarts for the holidays. Actually, it had been great fun so far. They had made several group trips into Hogsmeade, and several other individual trips for secret Christmas shopping. They had set up a great tree, brought to them by Hagrid, in the Great Hall, and many of the girls had worked their magic spells together to decorate the room with glowing fairies and enchanted pixies. On Christmas Eve, they held a great feast, and the students from all four Houses mixed together at the two central tables in a sincere show of school unity. To drive home the point, Harry brought Draco to the Gryffindor table, and placed him across from Ginny, who Harry sat beside.

The next morning, they exchanged presents, something Harry and Hermione had missed the previous Christmas while they were on the run, hiding from Riddle and his followers. Both of them received a lot of new clothes, because a year of living off the land had changed their bodies; and in very attractive ways, most of their fellow students thought. Harry had grown to just over six feet, tall and lean. He was still a bit shorter than Ron Weasley, but he was now a handsome young man who looked very much like his father. Hermione had filled out. The shortest of the four friends, she now had the most curves, and in all the right places. Ginny was especially thoughtful in making sure she had some clothes that showed her off, and also helped Ron pick out a special outfit that Hermione could wear on New Year's Eve.

On Boxing Day night, the residents held a holiday dance, and invited back any students who wanted to return to school early. The event proved to be a terrific success, and a feather in the cap of Ginny Weasley, who was Head Girl, and thus in charge of planning. But for Ginny, the highlight was a night of dancing. She had always been among the most popular girls in school, even during her fifth year when she was dating Harry Potter exclusively. But she was an excellent dancer, and Harry was only adequate, while her brother was incapable.

At the dance, she was delighted that Harry started off with her. Since the defeat of Voldemort, Harry and Ginny had found time to talk, and she now understood that he had broken up with her only to protect her. They were officially dating again, and as she had since she was 10 years old, she was hoping someday for more.

It didn't take long for them to notice that Ron wasn't going to ask Hermione to dance. He simply hated it, because, as in everything else, Ron simply never thought of himself as good enough. So, when Neville Longbottom, who had once taken Ginny to a Yule Ball, asked her to dance, Harry thought that was a great idea and asked Hermione. Taking her hand, he led her to the floor.

"You have to make allowances for your boyfriend," Harry whispered in her ear.

"Oh, I know," she said. "He is so backward about some things."

"Well, if you live to be 500 years old, you will never find another wizard who loves you more," Harry said to the honey-haired girl he considered to be his sister. "If you had seen the way the locket horcrux tortured him in the Forest of Dean, trying to keep him from destroying it, I know you would understand him more. And you know, he was always afraid you liked me more than him. It's just hard for Ron. There have been too many hand-me-downs in his life."

"Well, I am not a hand-me-down," she said. "I've discovered that I've been in love with Ronald for a long time. It just took me way too long to figure it out. Believe me…crying myself to sleep every night for months was no fun!"

"But it's OK now," Harry said. "Why don't you go sit with him for a little while?" he said, leading her back to their table. "Where's Ginny?" he asked Ron.

"Don't look now," Ron said.

Harry swept the room, and almost dropped his butterbeer. "Are you kidding me?" he exclaimed, with a huge frown. Across the room, Ginny was in the arms of a slim boy with slicked back blond hair so light it was almost silver. "How did she end up dancing with Malfoy?"

"He asked her right after she danced with Neville," Ron said, "And they started before I could do anything about it."

"Thank goodness for that," exclaimed Hermione. "Knowing your over-protective nature, I can't see how any good would have come from you interfering. After all, she is her own agent, and if Harry is going to dance with every girl who throws herself at him, you can't blame his girlfriend for reciprocating."

"Yeah, but if he touches her much more, I'm going to hex him into the next century," said the redhead.

"You keep watch," joshed Harry. "I'm going to go dance with Luna and Lavender."

Hermione did finally coax Ron onto the floor near the end of the night. Harry danced with just about every girl in the room, and since his victory, he was in great demand in every group, even if he wasn't the best dancer. It took him the whole night to work his way back to Ginny, but as the last dance started, he realized she had saved it for him.

"Did you have fun, sweetheart?" he asked.

"Oh loads," she said. "Did you suspect what a good dancer Draco is?"

"What? Is it Draco now?" he asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

"Well, he seems a lot nicer now, you know," Ginny said. "He didn't even call me Weaselette once tonight!" she said with a giggle. "But I guess I better be careful. You and Ron didn't look too happy with me a couple hours ago."

"What gave you a clue," Harry said with a laugh. Ginny just threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tighter. She pulled his head up, and placed a soft kiss on his lips.

"Don't be jealous, sweetheart." she said. "Well, actually, you can be as jealous as you want to be. I love you like that, and I plan to keep you that way. But just don't hurt anybody, OK!" Then she steered him under the mistletoe.

Sitting in her chair with her baby, Ginny remembered that had been the start of the unexpected trouble. The holiday kids had planned a pajama party for New Year's Eve. It seemed to make a lot of sense, since they would be staying up most of the night in the Great Hall, without going back to the dorms.

So they had moved the tables aside, set up a dance floor near the front, and brought sleeping bags down. They removed the Christmas decorations, and then materialized tons of multi-colored confetti floating in the air just above head level. Hermione, the smartest witch in her generation, had figured out how to transfigure pixies into New Years Babies, complete with 1999 sashes, and had them flying about the room carrying bottles of muggle Champagne for those students over seventeen.

Hermione had also asked her parents, who had recently returned from Australia, to send her a muggle stereo system for Christmas, and she had collected some of the most popular muggle music, tunes like "Frozen", "My All", "The Boy Is Mine", and even "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It". Ginny and Harry, on the other hand, soon found they loved to dance with each other to slow and moderate tempo disco like "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing", "Deeper Underground", and "Believe".

Interspersed with tunes from the Weird Sisters, the music soon had everyone on the floor. Hermione had even spent a few hours working with Ron, building his confidence, and now he was finally willing to dance with her a few times.

Harry, as usual, was in demand as a dancing partner, not so much because of his skill, but because of his fame. Ginny remembered that she had frequently been left available for other partners, which was no problem. She always enjoyed dancing with Neville, who was still at Hogwarts because Professor Sprout had offered him a teaching assistantship. Of course, since school started in two days, many of the kids who had been in her own year before the war were also back at school.

The pajama party idea had proven to be extremely popular, and there were some very creative outfits. Also some that no doubt stretched the bounds of propriety, including the baby doll top and short bottoms Ginny had chosen. It was only exceeded by Lavender's excess, which was to be expected. Of course, Luna was barefoot. Someone had hidden her slippers again. Ginny thought that looked so cool that she kicked off her own slippers.

If one thought some of the girls were taking fashion chances, they were nothing compared to Draco Malfoy! Ginny remembered she had nearly fainted when she first saw him walk into the Hall. If there was a tighter set of pajamas available anywhere in England, he must have missed them. What he was wearing, whatever one would call it, was a green and silver outfit so sheer and so form-fitting that it left practically nothing to the imagination. And Malfoy was so well sculpted that imagination would have done no better.

"Wow," Ginny had whispered to Harry, "and I thought only boys whistled at girls, not the other way around!"

"Yeah," Harry sneered. "I knew he was always jealous, always trying for more attention, but that getup pretty much wins a prize. Better be careful if you dance with him. I'm not sure there's enough protection there, if you know what I mean."

Ginny also remembered that Malfoy had been drinking way too much Champagne. By eleven o'clock, he was pretty tipsy, probably closer to drunk. That was really too bad, in her opinion, because Draco was a great dancer, and no matter what her brother and friends thought about him, she enjoyed dancing with him. Turned out unfortunate that night, however.

They were dancing, or rather she was dancing, and Draco was stumbling. It was a slow dance, thank Merlin, or he would have already fallen on the floor. Suddenly, he pulled her way too tightly against his body, and she felt way too much of him than was comfortable.

"Do you know how much I love you?" he slurred into her ear.

"What!" she screeched.

"I said, do you know how much I love you!" he said, his voice rising louder. "I've had a big crush on you since fourth year. Didn't know that, did you Weaselette?" he added, and now he was loud enough to attract some attention, even over the music.

"Oh, come on Draco," she said. "All you've ever done is tease me, embarrass me and torture me, just like everyone else in Gryffindor. I might be willing to dance with you; I might even be willing to believe you're trying to change a little. But deep down, I know you're still a Slytherin snake, and I've had enough snakes to last a lifetime."

That had been the wrong thing to say, Ginny remembered. Before she could get away, Malfoy had wrapped her up, and was pressing his lips to drunkenly to hers.

By now, Harry had noticed something was wrong. "Something going on here I should know about?" he asked as he walked up to them. "Ginny, is this prat bothering you?"

"Why don't you mind your own business, Potty mouth," Ginny remembered Malfoy had said maliciously. "I'm just trying to tell your ex-girlfriend why she will be so much better off with me than with the 'Boy Who Should Not Have Lived'. You've never loved her like I do, and I'm ready to fight you for her right now."

She remembered how he had let go of her, and swayed towards Harry. Making a fist, he had made a wild roundhouse swing that missed Harry by a meter. Having had to deal with Dudley Dursley on occasion, Harry was prepared. He didn't even duck. He simply returned an uppercut to Malfoy's nose that dropped him to the floor. Stunned, Malfoy put his hand to his face, and it came away with a trace of blood. True to form, he had crabbed away backwards as fast as he could, and quickly, a couple of the Slytherin girls grabbed him up and hustled him off to who knew where.

"Well, you two certainly know how to send the old year out with a bang," said Ron, who had seen the trouble and hustled over.

Ginny remembered the next few minutes as though they had been recorded on Kodachrome in her brain.

"Are you OK, honey?" Harry had asked her.

"Oh, sure," she had replied. "He hadn't gotten around to assaulting me."

"Well, since we're currently the center of attention, let's give them something to talk about," Harry said with a laugh. He dropped to his knees at her feet. "Ginerva Weasley, there has never been anyone in the world that I've loved more than you. There never will be, either. I can feel it right here," he had said, touching his heart with his hand. "I want to spend the rest of my life loving you. Will you marry me?"

"Oh Harry, of course!" she had exclaimed, and just as she answered, the clock had struck midnight and it was the New Year. The room had erupted, and it was almost impossible to tell who was cheering for Harry and Ginny, and who was celebrating the start of a newer, better, safer world. Like all the other couples in the room, they had thrown their arms around one another, and they lost themselves in a kiss both hoped would never end.

As the band played Auld Lang Syne, Harry had slipped a diamond ring on her finger, and Ron, Hermione, Luna and Neville had rushed up for a big group hug.

"What'cha thinking about, sweetheart," said Harry Potter as he led James back into the room.

"Oh, just dreaming back eight years ago, to one of the four most wonderful days of my life," she said.

"Humm. I wonder what happened then?" he said with a big grin. "Oh, that's right," he added, looking down at James, "that's when I asked your mommy to marry me, and she was silly enough to agree. You would have thought that would have ended all the excitement in my life, but it was just the start of the best part. Next, there was our wedding day, and then you came along, and now here's Al."

"Is it New yet, daddy," asked James.

"Not yet, honey," he answered. "But it's right around the corner, and so are a lot more good times for the Potter and Weasley families."

END


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